House in Extraordinary Urgency

The House has just gone into extraordinary urgency. This type of urgency is so rare, it needs the permission of the Speaker under Standing Order 56(3) . He must be convinced “that the business to be taken justifies it”.

Normal urgency only has the House sit until midnight (and only from the day after it is moved). Extraordinary urgency has the House sit until the law has been passed – even throughout the night.

Normally this is granted only for stuff like excise tax increases, and indeed it is for that – an increase in tobacco excise tax. Normally this is done at budget time, but it doesn’t have to be.

The bill calls for tobacco excise to be increased in three steps over two years.  It is proposed that the excise on cigarettes will rise immediately by 10% with a further 10% increase next January and a third increase of 10% in January 2012.

Also proposed is a 24% increase in the excise tax on loose tobacco followed by the same 10% increases in 2011 and 2012 as for cigarettes.

“We know that putting up the price is a powerful tool to reduce smoking.  It forces people to cut back, but more importantly it provides a strong incentive for smokers to quit and helps dissuade young people from ever starting to smoke.”

“This represents a huge investment in the future of our country.   Helping smokers to quit is a priority of this Government and one of our health targets,”

I guess this helps explain why they so quickly ruled out increasing the alcohol excise tax.